Tag: Machabbes

On 19 June 1940, Churchill made his first broad­cast as Prime Min­is­ter, a speech which lift­ed the hearts even of his for­mer and cur­rent crit­ics. “A tremen­dous bat­tle is rag­ing in France and Flan­ders,” he said, adding forth­right­ly that the Ger­mans, “by a remark­able com­bi­na­tion of air bomb­ing and heav­i­ly armoured tanks, have bro­ken through the French defences.”

In assur­ing his lis­ten­ers that Britain would fight on, Churchill chose a majes­tic coda, an obscure Bib­li­cal allu­sion, for the first and only time in all his writ­ings and speech­es.…